Higher Education during the Pandemic: The Predictive Factors of Learning Effectiveness in COVID-19 Online Learning

Abstract

The global coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak forced a shift from face-to-face education to online learning in higher education settings around the world. From the outset, COVID-19 online learning (CoOL) has differed from conventional online learning due to the limited time that students, instructors, and institutions had to adapt to the online learning platform. Such a rapid transition of learning modes may have affected learning effectiveness, which is yet to be investigated. Thus, identifying the predictive factors of learning effectiveness is crucial for the improvement of CoOL. In this study, we assess the significance of university support, student–student dialogue, instructor–student dialogue, and course design for learning effectiveness, measured by perceived learning outcomes, student initiative, and satisfaction. A total of 409 university students completed our survey. Our findings indicated that student–student dialogue and course design were predictive factors of perceived learning outcomes whereas instructor–student dialogue was a determinant of student initiative. University support had no significant relationship with either perceived learning outcomes or student initiative. In terms of learning effectiveness, both perceived learning outcomes and student initiative determined student satisfaction. The results identified that student–student dialogue, course design, and instructor–student dialogue were the key predictive factors of CoOL learning effectiveness, which may determine the ultimate success of CoOL.

STEM Students’ Perceptions on Emergency Online Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Successes

“…Student responses about factors that enhance the effectiveness of teaching strategies were categorized into three groups: belonging, organization and transparency, and realworld application, (see Figure 7) which are consistent with the findings of others [11][12][13]17,19,21,22].…”

“…One primary learner need for learning success is belonging to a community [8,11,12,[17][18][19][20][21]. Fostering a sense of community, especially in online courses, is critical to students' well-being as well as learning success.…”

“…One way to foster community is to create well-structured student groups that work on assignments both in class and out of class. During the pandemic, when all instruction was taking place at a distance, this was even more critical [2,5,8,19,22,23].…”

How to Keep University Active during COVID-19 Pandemic: Experience from Slovakia

“…During the teaching process, it is possible to observe several phases: motivational (preparation of students for active learning), exposure (initial acquaintance of students with the new curriculum), fixation (initial repetition and confirmation of the curriculum), and diagnostic (testing of acquired knowledge, skills, and habits). Research on the impact of a pandemic on education is currently addressed by several authors and institutions within their conditions, for example [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”

Digital University Teaching and Learning in Management—The Gini from the COVID-19 Bottle and Its Empirical Representations in Germany

“…In [59], the course design, pedagogical strategies incorporating active learning and providing a sense of online community, infrastructure for delivery and training, and incorporating activities that support student wellbeing were identified as success factors for digital education. In [60], student-student and instructor-student dialogues are identified as success factors. In particular, depending on the digital platform and format used, supporting student-student dialogues can be challenging [54].…”